Year 12 Mock

Claudiu Vicol

Year 12 Mock Exam

1. According to Steve Neale, ‘genre is instances of repetition and difference’ Genre in the clip is film noir and many of the conventions for film noir is generally dark and we see this in the clip how the scenes are usually dark, and most of the costumes used are dark clothing with low-key lighting and shadows of people, blinds and also a bleak view of humanity where the main theme is hacking (which is against the law). We see that the ‘detective’ here is Elliot Anderson, who is also the hacker.

2. The clip establishes character and initiate narrative in the instance where part of the sound is voice over (non diegetic sound) to connote how secret the character keeps himself and how isolated he may be. We see the that the character initiate narrative because when he is talking to Ron, he is the one in control and the roles somewhat switch and this is when we see that Elliot is the detective himself due to the fact that he is interrogating Ron about the computer files. In addition according to the Strauss Theory 'the binary opposition drives the narratives forward' - the binary opposition here is that Elliot Anderson is the hacker even though he is portrayed as a one of the good people. The drive of the narrative is when he reveals himself as a hacker to Ron, and by then to the audience. 

Inside the coffee shop we see that the sound is mainly diegetic as the music is from inside the coffee shop, the characters in the frame would be able to hear it play. This gives it a more realistic feeling to the audience. However the more information is given to Ron and in this instance the audience, the more dramatic it gets and the quieter the music and the background sounds become; to the point where it is virtually silent and we only hear the dialogue between Ron and Elliot.

The clip starts of with a close up shot moving into a medium, establishing shot to signify the importance of the “top 1 %”. This establishes the character and like the audience the character himself is also trying to figure out the people at the top and the establishing shot reveals truths e.g. the people are in a high building, this is significant because it is a direct similarity between the people at the top and them literally being at the very top of a building.

We get many cuts from the clip to another location, for example when he is on the train and is talking to the audience or it is what the character is thinking – he was talking about “last night” and then the scene cuts from the train to Ron’s Coffee Shop. He here is having many flashbacks to previous nights and how he may be regretting the decision of not going to the Angela's birthday party.

There are many two shots and over the shoulder shots when the two characters are speaking to each other. There are more cuts as the scene progresses; the audience here align themselves with Elliot.